Commentaire sur Le Lévitique 7:38

WHICH THE ETERNAL COMMANDED MOSES IN MOUNT SINAI. According to our Rabbis¹⁵⁴Sotah 37 b. all the commandments were expressly told to Moses on Mount Sinai, in their general rules, their specific regulations and their minute details, and some of them were repeated in the Tent of Meeting. Thus [all] the commandments in the Book of Vayikra (Leviticus) [which is prefaced by the verse stating it was made known in the Tent of Meeting], are repetitions [of those said on Sinai, which is the sense of the verse before us]. By way of the plain meaning of Scripture, the meaning of the verse is:¹⁵⁵The verse reads: Which the Eternal commanded Moses in Mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded the children of Israel to present their offerings unto the Eternal, in the wilderness of Sinai. Now according to the interpretation of the Rabbis mentioned above, the sense of the verse is that the laws of the offerings were commanded to Moses “in Mount Sinai,” and were repeated to him in the Tent of Meeting “in the wilderness of Sinai.” Ramban will now explain that according to the plain meaning of Scripture this verse speaks of two separate occasions: the offerings of the seven-day consecration of the priests were commanded to Moses “in Mount Sinai,” whilst the laws of the other offerings were given to Moses “in the wilderness of Sinai,” that is, in the Tabernacle. “Which the Eternal commanded Moses in Mount Sinai, and in the day that he commanded the children of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai to present their offerings unto the Eternal,” for He gave the commandment about the consecration-offerings [of the priests] in Mount Sinai, as also in the case of the burnt-offering and sin-offering [which were part of the consecration], and He commanded concerning the meal-offering, guilt-offering, and peace-offerings, in the wilderness of Sinai, in the Tent of Meeting.
It is possible that the expression in Mount Sinai means “in this place in front of Mount Sinai,” which is in the Tent of Meeting. Similarly, It is a continual burnt-offering, which was offered in Mount Sinai,¹⁵⁶Numbers 28:6. does not mean on the mountain itself, for the continual burnt-offering [i.e., the Daily Whole-offering brought for all Israel] began only in the Tent of Meeting, as it is written, Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar: two lambs of the first year day by day continually.¹⁵⁷Exodus 29:38. So also: And they set forward from the Mount of the Eternal¹⁵⁸Numbers 10:33. [which means “from before the Mount of the Eternal”]; ye have dwelt long enough in this mountain¹⁵⁹Deuteronomy 1:6. [which means “in front of this mountain”]. The sense of all these verses is that Israel had encamped before Mount Sinai nearby, as it is written, and there Israel encamped before the Mount.¹⁶⁰Exodus 19:2. There [in the wilderness of Sinai] they stayed until they journeyed from there to the wilderness of Paran.¹⁶¹Numbers 10:12: And the children of Israel set forward by their stages out of the wilderness of Sinai, and the cloud abode in the wilderness of Paran. Thus they made the Tent of Meeting and erected it before the Mount on its east side, and it was there that they began offering the Daily Whole-offering. In the second year [after the exodus] they were commanded concerning the standards,¹⁶²Ibid., 1:1; 2:1-31. and they set the Tent of Meeting in the midst of the camps¹⁶³Ibid., 2:17. when they journeyed. It is for this reason that Scripture says here that this is the law of the burnt-offering¹⁶⁴Verse 37 here. and of all the offerings which G-d commanded [Moses] in Mount Sinai, in the day that he commanded [the children of Israel] … in the wilderness of Sinai.¹⁶⁵Verse 38 here. Scripture thus states that it was in Mount Sinai and in the desert of Sinai, in order to inform us that it was not on the mountain itself, in the place of the Glory where G-d told to Moses the Ten Commandments, nor in the desert of Sinai after they had journeyed from before the Mount. Rather, it was in the wilderness of Sinai, in front of the mountain within its environs and nearby, and there was the Tent of Meeting, as He said at the beginning of the subject of the offerings, And He called unto Moses, and the Eternal spoke unto him out of the Tent of Meeting,¹⁶⁶Above, 1:1. and now He informed us of the place of the Tent of Meeting.

אשר צוה את משה בהר סיני, “that He had commanded Moses at Mount Sinai.” Nachmanides writes that this is to be understood in accordance with the view of our sages that all commandments had been commanded to Moses at Mount Sinai, but that some of them had been repeated to him when G’d spoke to him from above the Holy Ark in the Tent of Testimony. It is possible that the reason why the Torah emphasized “at Mount Sinai,” especially in this instance, is that on this occasion, when the Israelites were still camped around the mountain, speaking to Moses in the Tent of Testimony was basically equivalent to speaking to him from Mount Sinai. This is not the only time when the Torah uses the expression בהר סיני when it does not literally man that the command was (only) issued while Moses was on the mountain. In Numbers 28,6 we find the line עולת תמיד העשויה בהר סיני, “the permanent, (daily) burnt offering presented at Mount Sinai.” [This verse follows the appointment of Eleazar as his father Aaron’s successor as high Priest and a report of his having performed his duties for the first time. well into the 40th year of the Israelites in the desert. Ed.] Performance of this offering could not have commenced at the time Moses received the Torah at Mount Sinai, as it was offered in the Tent of Testimony only close to eleven months after the revelation. The Tent of Testimony had not begun operating until the month of Nissan in the second year. The reason why this slightly misleading wording was chosen, was that at the time when this offering was first introduced as a daily offering the Israelites were still encamped around Mount Sinai [until the 20th of the month following. Ed.] The people were commanded to divide their encampments according to the “flags” of the various army groups of three tribes each in the second year, and only then was the Tabernacle, Tent of Meeting, moved from a location close to where they had encamped ever since the time they arrived near the Mountain, between 3 and 6 days before the revelation. In order to make this distinction even clearer, the Torah writes: (7,37) זאת התורה לעולה, למנחה, ולחטאת ולאשם ולמלואים ולזבח השלמים אשר צוה ה' את משה בהר סיני ביום צוותו את בני ישראל להקריב את קרבניהם לה' במדבר סיני. “This is the law of the burnt offerings, the meal offerings, the sin offering, and the guilt offering, and the inauguration offerings, and the peace offerings on festivals, which Hashem commanded Moses on Mount Sinai, on the day He commanded the Children of Israel to bring their offerings to Hashem, in the wilderness of Sinai.” The Torah makes the point that the location of the Children of Israel at the time was the desert of Sinai, after they had moved away some distance from Mount Sinai. The tent of Meeting therefore was located in “the desert of Sinai,” not next to Mount Sinai. When the Book of Leviticus had commenced with the words: “the Lord spoke to Moses from the Tent of Testimony,” the meaning is that this conversation took place not at Mount Sinai but in the desert not far from Mount Sinai. We had not known the precise location of the Tabernacle at that time until we came to this verse

להקריב את קרבניהם לה׳ במדבר סיני, “to present their offerings to the Lord in the desert of Sinai. The reason why this line is necessary, although most of us would have understood the chapter without it being repeated, is because until the Israelites had made camp at Mount Sinai they had not offered a single offering (Exodus 24,5) The altar which Moses had built after the battle with Amalek was located at Mount Sinai. (Exodus 17,15) “Mount Chorev” and “Mount Sinai” are two names describing the same Mountain or group of peaks. The Israelites encamped around there for a period of 10 days less than a year from the first day of Sivan (in the first year) to the twentieth day of iyar of the second year. (Numbers 10,11) During the remainder of their journeys, for almost 39 years they did not offer any sacrifices as stated by the prophet Amos 5,25: הזבחים ומנחה הגשתם לי בני ישראל במדבר, “did you offer to Me any sacrifices or oblations in the forty years in the desert?” Even the Passover offering was presented only in Egypt and in the following year, before the Israelites had broken camp.” According to our author, offerings were brought on the Day of Atonement of the second year, but we do not know his source for this.